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The compensation payment, one of the biggest made to a police worker, was so large that it had to be listed in the Home Office’s annual accounts, published last week.

In the section on losses and special payments, it stated: ‘A compensation payment of £464,000 was paid by the College of Policing in respect of an employee who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.’

Phi Phi Island, in Thailand, was one of the many coastal areas to suffer severe devastation in the tsunami

The College of Policing, which replaced the man’s former employers, Centrex and the National Policing Improvement Agency, said: ‘In 2005, the Home Office put together a deployment of policing experts to help in the response to the Sri Lankan tsunami.

‘Following a review of the 2005 deployment the College of Policing recognises that there were matters Centrex could have dealt with better, including post-incident support.’

The forensics expert was one of about 60 police officers and civilian staff from the UK who helped out in the aftermath of the earthquake in the Indian Ocean. It is estimated that more than 230,000 people were killed in the Boxing Day disaster.

In total police forces have paid out an estimated £85 million to employees over the past five years.

Last year The Mail on Sunday revealed that police officers are routinely paid sums of up to £500 for carrying out ‘outstandingly unpleasant’ tasks such as recovering decomposed bodies from rivers.